Handshake is the career network for the AI economy. 20 million knowledge workers, 1,600 educational institutions, 1 million employers (including 100% of the Fortune 50), and every foundational AI lab trust Handshake to power career discovery, hiring, and upskilling, from freelance AI training gigs to first internships to full-time careers and beyond. This unique value is leading to unparalleled growth; in 2025, we tripled our ARR at scale.
Why join Handshake now:
Shape how every career evolves in the AI economy, at global scale, with impact your friends, family and peers can see and feel
Work hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions
Join a team with leadership from Scale AI, Meta, xAI, Notion, Coinbase, and Palantir, among others
Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue
Join our Backend Platform team as a Senior Software Engineer, where you will be integral in owning and advancing the foundational systems that support every product team. This role offers the chance to engage with genuine platform-scale architecture challenges, tackling tasks such as optimizing Elasticsearch queries and redesigning CI pipelines. You will have a direct impact on how students connect with career opportunities through high-impact modernization work.
Optimize backend systems like Elasticsearch and CI pipelines to improve performance and reliability across our platform.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to influence technical direction through effective communication and well-scoped proposals.
Lead cross-team projects and drive RFCs to align technical initiatives with organizational goals.
Develop and maintain internal developer tooling, libraries, and APIs to streamline engineering workflows and enhance productivity.
Participate in modernization efforts such as migration paths and system conversions to shape the evolution of our platform.
This position provides career growth opportunities through leadership in technical projects and collaboration across diverse teams.
You Have5+ years of backend engineering experience, with expert-level proficiency in Ruby on Rails.
Experience in building internal developer tooling and improving developer experience.
Demonstrated technical leadership through project management, mentorship, or influencing technical direction.
Strong collaboration skills with the ability to work across product and platform teams.
Interest in leveraging AI technologies to enhance developer experience.
Bonus Points:
Experience with AI-powered developer tools or AI integration in workflows.
Background in developer experience infrastructure, such as devcontainers and CLI tooling.
DevOps/Infrastructure expertise, ideally with GCP.
Familiarity with Docker, service-oriented architecture, and backend languages like Go or TypeScript.
Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supported—and thrive at work and in life.
The below benefits are for full-time US employees.
🎯 Ownership: Equity in a fast-growing company
💰 Financial Wellness: 401(k) match, competitive compensation, financial coaching
🍼 Family Support: Paid parental leave, fertility benefits, parental coaching
💝 Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision, mental health support, $500 wellness stipend
📚 Growth: $2,000 learning stipend, ongoing development
💻 Remote & Office: Internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office
🏝 Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days
🤝 Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses
Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.
Top Skills
What We Do
Handshake is the #1 place to launch a career with no connections, experience, or luck required. The platform connects up-and-coming talent with 650,000+ employers - from Fortune 500 companies like Google, Nike, and Target to thousands of public school districts, healthcare systems, and nonprofits. Earlier this year, we announced our $200M Series F funding round. This Series F fundraise and new valuation of $3.5B will fuel Handshake’s next phase of growth and propel our mission to help more people start, restart, and jumpstart their careers.
Why Work With Us
How someone builds their career is foundational. We believe in working with the higher education community to help students build meaningful careers. We are at the nexus of universities, students and employers— and we’re able to connect the very best pieces of each side. We’re proud to create a community where students can be more successful.
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